Mobile 2D gaming represents over 60% of daily active game sessions worldwide, yet most commercial engines carry gigabytes of legacy monolithic overhead that bloats APK sizes, drains battery, and causes thermal throttling. Krotox strips away unnecessary baggage, utilizing an exclusive, raw Vulkan 1.3 2D batching pipeline that paces frames to the refresh rate of the display, with instant startup, sub-50MB builds, and ultra-efficient battery consumption on Android devices.
Read the architecture overview
Yes! The Krotox Engine Editor is fully supported on Windows 10/11 (x64) and macOS 12+ (Universal for Apple Silicon M1-M4 and Intel x64). You can build, simulate, script, and test your 2D games directly on your desktop machine, then export a signed Android APK/AAB with one click. Today only a Windows download is published.
Krotox renders through Vulkan 1.3 only. If a machine has no suitable GPU or driver, the Lavapipe software renderer is bundled with the editor so it can still start. Expect it to run far slower than on a real GPU, so it suits trying the editor rather than daily work.
On desktop, Krotox uses Mono with hot-reloading so you can save scripts in VS Code or Rider and see changes reflected in the running editor in seconds. For Android exports, Krotox employs Mono Full-AOT (Ahead-of-Time) compilation for ARM64. All C# code is pre-compiled directly into native machine code before packaging, completely eliminating runtime JIT stutter and delivering maximum framerate stability.
Krotox integrates Box2D 3.x, the gold-standard 2D physics engine. Features include multi-threaded sub-stepping, continuous collision detection (CCD) to eliminate projectile tunneling, a 32-layer collision filtering matrix, 7 joint constraint types (Revolute motor, Distance spring, Prismatic slider, Wheel, Weld, Pulley), Box2D collision groups for ragdolls, and two-bone inverse kinematics (IK).
Connect your phone with USB debugging on, open File > Build Settings (Ctrl+Shift+B), choose Android, pick the phone under Target Device and press Build and Run. The engine compiles your C# ahead of time, cross-compiles the native libraries for the selected ABIs (arm64-v8a, armeabi-v7a, x86_64 or x86), packs your scenes and assets into a compressed data.pak, signs the APK or AAB, then installs and launches it over ADB.
Yes. The Krotox Viewport includes a dedicated Device Emulation Bar with presets for modern Android phones and foldables (Galaxy S24, Pixel 9, foldables, tablets). Left-clicking simulates finger touches, and holding Alt simulates two-finger pinch-to-zoom and rotation gestures. You can also test on-screen virtual joysticks and accelerometer tilt without needing a physical phone attached.
Yes. Krotox is licensed royalty-free for commercial use: no revenue royalties, no splash screen mandates, no per-seat subscription tiers, and no runtime fees of any kind. You own 100% of your game code, assets, and profits.
No. The terms do not require a "Made with Krotox" logo or any splash screen, and there are no revenue thresholds after which your rights change.
Not by default. Telemetry is off until you opt in on the first-sign-in consent screen, and you can withdraw consent at any time under Account > Diagnostics & Privacy. Your source code, assets, and game logic are never collected, and games you export contain no analytics or phone-home code.
Yes. If you decline telemetry or work without an account, the editor stays fully functional and makes no telemetry calls. Exported games run entirely offline and need no license-validation server.
While Unity is a versatile generalist engine, its 2D pipeline still shares a massive legacy runtime infrastructure. Krotox is custom-engineered from the ground up for 2D with raw Vulkan 1.3 quad batching, EnTT pure data ECS, and native Box2D 3.x. Projects open in 1 second, build in under 3 seconds, and consume up to 70% less memory and battery on Android devices.
No. You build scenes in the editor and write gameplay in C# scripts. The C++ and Vulkan parts are the engine's own internals. Some C# helps: knowing classes, methods and fields is enough to start.
2D games, especially mobile-first ones: platformers, top-down games, and tilemap or procedurally generated levels. The editor has a tile painter, Box2D physics, touch input and UI components built for exactly those.
Yes. The Start Here section walks you from installing the editor to a running game. The first-project tutorial builds a small physics scene with a script and then runs it on an Android phone.
A project is a folder with an Assets directory (textures, scripts, scenes), a .ktxproj project file, and generated Binaries and Cache folders. Every asset gets a .meta file holding a permanent ID, so rename and move assets inside the editor to keep every scene reference intact.
From the Download section on the home page. Only a Windows build is published for now, and it arrives as a .zip.
Not yet. Only the Windows build is published for now. The docs describe macOS support, but there is no macOS or Linux download at the moment.
Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and a GPU with Vulkan 1.3: NVIDIA Maxwell, AMD GCN 2.0, Intel Iris Xe or newer, with an up-to-date driver. The DirectX Shader Compiler and the Mono runtime are bundled.
Q, W, E and R select, move, rotate and scale, and F frames the selection. F5 plays and stops, F11 plays full-window, Ctrl+S saves the scene, Ctrl+Shift+S saves it under a new name, Ctrl+D duplicates, and Ctrl+Shift+B opens Build Settings. F7 compiles scripts and Ctrl+P opens the command palette. Press F1 in the editor for the full list.
Scripts are plain .cs files. Double-clicking one in the Content Browser opens it in Visual Studio Code or JetBrains Rider.
In the editor, save the script and it compiles in the background; press Ctrl+R to reload the assembly (a reload asked for during Play waits until you stop). On Android there is no hot reload: scripts are compiled ahead of time to native code, so you build and run again to see a change.
Yes. The Tile Palette (View > Tile Palette) paints tiles from a texture sheet onto sorting layers such as Background, Obstacles and Foreground, and generates Box2D collision contours for them. You can also set tiles from C# at runtime.
Yes. Canvas components support a screen overlay for HUDs and buttons, and a world-space mode for things like floating health bars. Buttons have normal, hovered, pressed and disabled states, and text uses MSDF rendering so it stays sharp on any screen.
By default the minimum is API 24 (Android 7.0), which the docs say reaches over 97% of devices, and the target is API 36 (Android 16). You can change the minimum in Build Settings.
Yes. Export a signed APK or AAB and upload it. You manage your own Google Play developer account, your signing keys and compliance with Play policies. The terms put that responsibility on you.
The terms name Google Play, Samsung Galaxy Store, Amazon Appstore and direct APK or AAB on Android; Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, itch.io and the Microsoft Store on Windows; and the Mac App Store or a notarized .dmg on macOS.
You do: your art, scripts, audio, levels, story and trademarks. Krotox claims no ownership of anything you import, create or export, and you can keep your game closed source.
The mascot and other brand art are Krotox's protected assets, and the terms do not grant a right to use them. Ask first at [email protected].
Licensing and legal questions go to [email protected]. Privacy questions and data requests go to [email protected], which replies within 48 business hours.
No. The standalone runtime has no analytics or phone-home code, does not track installs or players, and can run fully offline.
Only after you consent: account details (email, username, display name), environment details (OS version, GPU vendor, Vulkan driver version) and performance figures (startup time, import latency, shader compile time, FPS averages). Never your code, assets, game logic or revenue.
Turn categories off any time under Account > Diagnostics & Privacy, which clears anything queued on your disk. To access or delete records we hold, email [email protected] and expect a reply within 48 business hours.
The editor prepares a short report with your account name scrubbed from file paths and only engine symbols in the call stack. Even with crash reporting on, it asks "Share Crash Report" on the next launch, and nothing is sent until you agree.
No cookies, analytics or ad scripts. Fonts and code come from the site itself, and only three preferences (theme, sound and the hidden mascot) are saved in your browser's local storage.